Failures and lessons – an Easter Eve story

Failures and lessons are often hidden in everyday moments – sometimes even in something as simple as cooking.

👉 🇸🇪 Read this post in Swedish Påskafton har lagt sig – om glass, misslyckanden och viljan att vinna

🌅 When the calm settles

Failures and lessons – an Easter Eve

Easter Eve has settled.
The kitchen is clean and the food has become less – taking up less space in the fridge now.

There’s something about that feeling afterwards.
When everything has been. When it all becomes quiet again.

🍦 Failures and lessons in the kitchen

I have to say – the ice cream I made was a hit.
It was so good.

But I’ve already learned something along the way:

👉 Less fat. Much less fat.

The chocolate milk (Oboy) ice cream was a hit with Alfred.
My favorite was Turkish yogurt with honey.

But next time, I’ll use regular yogurt and much less honey.

This time I used:

1 dl yogurt
3 dl milk
2 tbsp honey

The sour taste… oh wow, so good.
But it felt a bit too heavy, and the honey took over a little.

Maybe more like 2 teaspoons next time.
A little less – so the flavors can stay.

I made the vanilla ice cream in two versions:

2 dl cream + 2 dl milk
1 dl cream + 3 dl milk

And the chocolate milk ice cream was:

only milk + 3 tbsp chocolate powder

And you know what…

👉 I actually liked the milk version best.

Not as creamy maybe –
but softer and nicer in the mouth.

Sometimes we think more is better.
But it’s not always like that.

It really became an evening of failures and lessons – but in a good way.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Just being who we are

We were ten people here.

Our oldest daughter.
Our youngest daughter with her son – my grandson Alfred.
Simon and his partner.

It’s so nice when we get together.

And because we are family, we are who we are.

No need to pretend.
And if something turns out less than perfect – well, that’s how it is.

🥔 Failures and lessons – the potato gratin

I actually know this.
It’s something I learned back in culinary school.

But still…
there are so many different kinds of potatoes today, and sometimes things don’t turn out as planned anyway.

Today, we failed with the potato gratin.

It was waxy potatoes that had been sitting in water after the power outage on Thursday.
And afterwards, when I sit and think – or even already when the gratin was in the oven – a thought kept nagging me:

Water… potatoes sitting for days… what was I thinking?

And when I then realized the potatoes were waxy…

Well, maybe it’s not so strange it turned out the way it did.

When potatoes sit in water, some of the starch is lost –
and it’s the starch that makes the gratin creamy.

And waxy potatoes already contain less starch.

So despite lots of cream and a long time in the oven…
it didn’t become creamy.

Sometimes things don’t turn out well.
And that’s life.

Better next time.

And maybe it’s exactly these kinds of failures and lessons that make you think one more time.

🍞 Failures and lessons – sourdough Sune

The sourdough – Sune – and I, we keep going.

Flat bread.
A bit… whatever it turns into.

It’s harder baking with gluten-free flour, I can really tell.
It doesn’t behave like regular flour.

But I’m not giving up.

I will learn how to bake sourdough bread.
It will work.

And I think like this:

👉 With every failure, I get closer to succeeding.

And that’s not just something I say.

There is actually research showing that we learn more when things don’t go as planned.
When we need to adjust, rethink and try again –
that’s when the brain really works.

Sune the sourdough is probably the clearest example of my failures and lessons right now.

♟️ Wanting to win – and learning to lose

Failures and lessons in everyday life

Alfred brought his chess set.

He played against several people and faced some resistance.
The last game, his mother won.

And that didn’t sit so well.

A bit of a bad mood.

That winning spirit Alfred has…
it’s been there since he was very young.

He wants to win.
And when he doesn’t – he gets upset.

But you know… I actually think there’s something good in that.

Because it means he doesn’t give up.
That he wants to.
That he fights.

And there is something in that drive –
that will to keep going, almost like life and death sometimes –
that can take people further.

To something more.
Something bigger.

At the same time, I think it’s something that needs balance.

Research shows that it’s not only the will to win that helps us grow –
but also the ability to handle when we don’t.

To feel disappointment.
To be upset for a while.
But also to find your way back.

And maybe that’s where something important happens:

👉 When the will to win is allowed to exist
👉 and the feeling of losing also has space

That’s when we truly grow.